


No Incentive So Great

by thisprettywren



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Abduction, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-14
Updated: 2011-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-27 08:33:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisprettywren/pseuds/thisprettywren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone's trying to send Sherlock a message, but all that's happening is a failure of communication.</p><p>Contains descriptions of injury (although not particularly graphic).</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Incentive So Great

**Author's Note:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/6375.html?thread=27727591#t27727591) over at sherlockbbc_fic that asked for John being a BAMF doctor to an awkward and vulnerable Sherlock. Contains, as a result, some rather gratuitous whump.
> 
> I wrote this back in February and never posted it anywhere but the meme for reasons that probably made sense at the time.

John was shouting, his face twisted into an expression of disbelieving rage. “Just listen for once, can’t you? Stop being such an arrogant prat and consider that maybe, just maybe, even _you_ can’t predict everything.”

The blackmail-turned-murder case they’d been investigating had ended rather abruptly when Sherlock’s absolute certainty regarding the suspects underworld ties had led to a young man being killed.

“An error of judgement,” Sherlock said, knowing how dismissive it sounded yet unable to say anything else, not with that shadow darkening John’s eyes, “everyone makes—“

“Not everyone is so bloody _gleeful_ about it,” John broke in. “Christ, Sherlock, I can’t believe you’re still doing this. I’m disappointed in you, I really am.”

Sherlock reeled. “I’m not the only one who can’t predict the future,” Sherlock said, snatching at the first words that came to mind. “How much did you lose on the horses just last week? Not one to be talking, are you?”

John simply glared until Sherlock grabbed his coat and swept out of the door.

**

It was approximately four seconds after he settled into the seat of the sleek, black car that Sherlock realised it had not, in fact, been sent by Mycroft. Careless, he berated himself in the moment of thought left to him before there was a sharp crack against his skull and his world went black.

**

The world was still black when he came to, a rough tickle of cloth against his face. His head was swimming in the darkness, the ground beneath him shuddering, then abruptly still. _Car_. Yes; he could recall that much, at least. Arms trapped behind him, bite of steel at his wrists: handcuffs, and his head too appallingly bright with pain to work out why.

Then it stopped and he was being tugged forward. His resistance was instinctive and ultimately fruitless; hands pulled him roughly upright, but he couldn’t get his feet under himself. He overbalanced, landing on the pavement with a heavy thump that rattled his already-reeling head. A voice he didn’t recognise was speaking, the tone derisive, but he couldn’t seem to concentrate enough to follow the actual words. Two sets of hands grabbed him by the upper arms and yanked him roughly to his feet. They propelled him forward as he stumbled along between them, feeling foolish. Refusing to acknowledge anything else.

He was thoroughly unprepared for the sudden disappearance of the ground beneath him.

The sensation of an unanticipated fall through blackness was indescribable, the stuff of nightmares. Sherlock was sure he must have shouted, leaving the sound of it behind him as he fell. Blind as he was and with his arms still trapped behind him he had no sense of perspective, much less hope of catching himself.

The impact with the packed dirt of the floor sent starbursts of pain radiating through his bruised skull, and he felt a sickening _pop_ in one shoulder, so intensely wrong that he swallowed down a sudden wave of nausea.

The fabric of the hood was stifling; he had to fight to keep air moving in and out of his lungs, the effort wreaking havoc on the wrenched muscles of his chest, his blood humming with barely-contained panic at the claustrophobic sensation. After a time he calmed enough to realise that he was lying mostly on his stomach, his mouth pressing against the cool dirt of the floor; he tried to turn onto his back, but his attempts to find leverage sent such clawing agony down the side of his body that he abandoned the effort.

 _Right_ , he told himself. _Focus_. There was data here, information he could use. There must be, if he could just think past the protests of his body; but he had no context, no way to set it aside. Pain for a purpose, that he could abide, but this—

He gritted his teeth and tried to push everything else aside.

He’d wrapped up his only open case; no one had been recently released. So who, why? His thought caught on the question, repeating it again and again, getting nowhere.

Sherlock didn’t lose consciousness again, or didn’t think he did. He drifted in a liminal state for what seemed like a long time before the sound of approaching footsteps alerted him to the fact that he was no longer alone.

Some instinctual vestiges of pride compelled him to school his face into a disaffected sneer as the hood was yanked roughly from his head, but he was still lying curled on his side and couldn’t keep his eyes open against the sudden influx of light, so he was willing to concede the likelihood that the effect was probably somewhat less than ideal.

A male voice, unfamiliar, floated out of the too-bright air. “If it isn’t the great Sherlock Holmes.” The words were mocking, tinged with laughter.

“Quite.” Sherlock spoke through clenched teeth, afraid that opening his mouth any wider would result in the further humiliation of vomiting on the man’s shoes.

The voice was suddenly closer; breath against his cheek, rough fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck. “I bet you’re wondering why you’re here.” When Sherlock didn’t bother answering, the man continued. “I was warned about you, you know. Warned you’d been poking your nose in where it was best left out. Sniffing around things that aren’t none of your business. What do you do with a dog that won’t stay out of where he’s not wanted?”

He grabbed Sherlock’s handcuffed wrists roughly and yanked, sending hot spasms of agony clawing up his arm and through his injured shoulder. Sherlock thought he mostly managed to swallow his groan.

“Chain him up,” the man said, sounding satisfied, and released his grip. “But I’ve been warned about that, too. So I thought I’d give you an… _incentive_.”

Sherlock forced his eyes open, squinting up at the man. Large square face capped by sandy blonde hair, brown eyes. Not particularly muscular; workman’s hands, broad-backed and blunt-fingered.

“Incentive,” he repeated, hoping it sounded bored rather than simply befuddled. He was past being able to tell.

The man sneered. “Pathetic,” he said, as though to himself.

 _M_ _ust have missed the mark on bored, then._ He could very nearly have laughed.

The man grabbed him by both shoulders and Sherlock’s world went dark and yellow-streaked with pain as he was pulled into a sitting position and propped against the cool cement of the wall. He could hear his own breath rasping in his throat, but couldn’t even seem to get enough of it to groan properly. He closed his eyes and willed the room to stop spinning, letting his head fall back.

When he finally opened his eyes again, the man was standing over him. “What a sad, snivelling little thing you are,” he said to Sherlock. “This is going to be easier than I thought.”

“So sorry to disappoint,” he managed weakly. Then the nausea overtook him; he barely managed to turn his head before the vomit forced its way past his teeth. He hadn’t eaten that day and it was mostly harsh yellow bile that stung in his throat and made his eyes water. He spit to rid himself of the taste but, with his hands still cuffed behind him, had to settle for wiping his mouth against his good shoulder, his cheeks burning with shame.

The man laughed. “If I’d known you’d be like _this_ , I hardly would have even bothered. But no sense letting all that work go to waste.” A handful of photographs fluttered to the floor.

Sherlock stared at them: three of John and four of Mrs. Hudson, going about their ordinary lives, all taken at Baker Street over the course of several days. In each one, the red dot of a sniper’s sight could be seen plainly.

 _John._ His eyes lingered on the image in which John’s face could be seen most clearly. He was concentrating on something out of frame, his expression entirely unlike the way Sherlock had last seen it, during their row earlier that night (or possibly the night before, by then).

It was why he’d been distracted enough to get into the car in the first place, and it meant no one would be looking for him, or at least not right away. John would suppose he was just avoiding the flat.

Well, Sherlock supposed it served him right. He clenched his fist in frustration.

“Let me guess,” Sherlock managed, “you have a job for me. Which you think I’ll do, because otherwise you’re going to hurt them.” His tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. “Dull.”

“ _Wrong,_ ” the man said. “I don’t want you to do a bloody thing. In fact, I want you to stay right here. Just for a few days, until I have time to finish my job and get to— get out of town. But I’d heard you were _clever_ ”—the voice was a sneer, and Sherlock silently agreed; he certainly didn’t _feel_ clever at the moment— “with lockpicking and the like. So I thought I’d help give you a reason to want to stay put. Less work for me.”

Sherlock closed his eyes and rested his head carefully against the wall. “Deterrent,” he said, finally.

The man laughed. “You’re a bit slow, perhaps, but you’ve got there at last. Deterrent. Exactly.”

“And you think this ends well for you, do you? You think I’ll agree to just stay out of the way.” Sherlock mentally ran through what it would take to slip the handcuffs, and couldn’t imagine managing even that in his current state, much less finding his way out of this cellar and away.

The whole thing felt like quite a bit of overkill. He considered saying as much, but couldn’t quite seem to organise the words in his mouth.

The man nudged Sherlock’s leg with the toe of his boot. “You don’t have to _agree_ to anything, being as how you’re here already. You just have to wait patiently, not cause me any more trouble, and when I’m done you can go back home and they’ll both be there, safe and sound. Try anything, and even if you _do_ make it home you’ll be just in time to scrub bits of their brains off that bloody awful wallpaper.” The man’s eyes narrowed. “Just keep that in mind before you do anything stupid,” he said, turning away.

Sherlock listened to his footsteps receding up the wood steps and the clang as the bulkhead door swung closed, shutting Sherlock in darkness that was, at least, a relief for his aching head.

 _Overkill,_ he thought again. He took a moment to run through what he knew about his own situation. It amounted, roughly, to bugger-all. He still didn’t have the slightest clue who the man was, or what he was planning that necessitated getting Sherlock so thoroughly out of the way. Embarrassing, really. Not that it mattered; he really _couldn’t_ do anything, not as he was now, concussed and still handcuffed, the pain from his dislocated shoulder causing his muscles to tremble and sweat to prickle on his skin from even the smallest movements.

Calling his body transport was all well and good, but when it was out of commission it made it bloody difficult to get anywhere.

_No. Might’ve tried, there might be something—_

The photographs were still on the floor in front of him, invisible in the darkness. _John._ He’d be furious. Was probably still furious. John, who’d never be so pathetic as to sit idle while some criminal executed an unknown plan, incapacitated by a few bumps and bruises.

Ruthless with himself as ever; at least he could be that.

He shifted, swallowed the choked sound that tried to force its way up his throat. Useless. Unlike John, who was back on Baker Street at that very moment with a sniper (two? Three?) outside, vulnerable and unaware. And here he sat, unable to muster his brain into coming up with a plan.

Sherlock knew, distantly, that being angry with himself wasn’t helping. He just needed a moment, needed some time to let the pain subside. Then he’d be able to think, plan, do something. If he could just sit here for a while, give his head time to clear, he’d be able to think.

The darkness around him was dizzying. He lost himself in it; drifted.

By the time he was ready to admit to himself that he was becoming more muddled, not less, it was already too late, his thoughts gone soft and fuzzed-out around the edges.

Stupid. For all his cleverness, too slow when it counted.

Time stretched out before him, black and featureless. The pain in his head was steady; the ache in his shoulder and side increased as the muscles stiffened. His legs cramped, the beginning stages of dehydration hastened by having been sick.

He badly wanted both a drink and a piss, and eventually had no choice about the second one, his shoulder preventing him even from gaining the leverage necessary to stand and move to a different part of the cellar. Couldn’t have undone the zip on his trousers with his hands behind him, in any case. _Not even that,_ he thought in disgust, resigning himself to the humiliation of the damp cloth of his trousers cooling against his thigh.

He tried to bring his thoughts back to his situation, to work out the reason for it, but there was no _data_. With nothing else to hold his attention, his mind grabbed onto his last conversation with John. John’s voice, in memory: _Just this once. Disappointed in you_. Over and over in the darkness until it grew overwhelmingly loud, until Sherlock couldn’t distinguish it from his own thoughts.

His sense of time had long since failed; he could have been there for hours or days. It certainly felt like the latter. His tongue was swollen in his mouth; he imagined he could feel his brain pressing against the bones of his skull. _Concussion and dehydration,_ he thought vaguely, _deadly,_ but it didn’t seem to matter much. Wouldn’t matter at all, in fact, if, as he’d begun to expect, they’d simply left him there to rot, the business with the photographs a ruse designed to keep him in place long enough that he’d grow too weak to escape when he finally realised it would be necessary. Just a trick that he’d been too slow-witted to unravel.

He slept, and woke, and the darkness spun around him. He went on sitting, went on hating himself for it. Went on failing utterly to work out why he was there.

His body had altogether failed to acclimatise to the pain in his shoulder and side. The cellar was cold, his muscles wracked by cramps as he continued to sit in the endless dark, head swimming. It was infuriating: his body betraying him, succumbing to agony brought about through such simple means. His body overwhelmed, torn from his control; turned, finally, against his mind, and if Sherlock didn’t have that, then—

Well.

(Useless, useless, he couldn’t _think_.)

John hadn’t come, nor Mycroft, nor even Lestrade. _Fitting_ , he thought savagely. Fitting and probably what he deserved.

( _Disappointed in you._ )

What use, after all, was a broken tool?

* * *

Interminable time later the door opened, dusk light spilling down in a bright square on the floor of the cellar. Sherlock turned away from it as his eyes adjusted, suddenly conscious of how he must look, how he must smell. For a moment he could scarcely believe it; his brain had long ago started playing tricks on him, superimposing images on the darkness that pressed heavily against eyes that burned with fatigue. Then, for the space of two heartbeats, he allowed himself to entertain the thought that it might be rescue.

But no, there were the boots of the sandy-haired man descending the stairs; there was his sneering face.

“You’ve been such a _good boy,_ he said. “So patient and obedient. Your doctor and the dear old lady are safe, just as I promised; time to take you home to them.” He was at Sherlock’s side now, holding out a cloth that must, it took Sherlock only a second to recognise, be the same hood they’d put over his head when they brought him here. “I could knock you out again, or you could just go on being a _good boy_ and let me put this on you.”

Sherlock didn’t trust himself to speak—wasn’t sure he could, tongue and lips cracked and stiff as they were—and hesitated only a moment before giving a slight nod of assent. Nothing about this seemed real.

He was once again pulled unceremoniously to his feet, cramped muscles protesting as he stumbled numbly forward. His foot caught on one of the steps and he went down hard, a jarring impact that knocked the air from his lungs and it was just too much altogether, really; surely there had to be some limit to how much everything could _hurt_.

He thought, _This is actually unbearable,_ as though he’d reached a point at which his body would simply rebel and slough the whole bloody mess like snakeskin, but of course he made it back onto his feet in the end and got on with things.

The drive seemed to go on forever; Sherlock tried to follow the turns but lost track after a dishearteningly short time. He started again, even knowing it was an exercise in futility.

Finally the car stopped. Quick hands draped a blanket— _no, my coat_ , he thought, and could feel the weight of his keys in the pocket—around his shoulders, over his arms still trapped behind him, and did up one button to hold it on. There was a sudden rush of air as the door swung open and the hood was yanked from his head; before he could muster his thoughts into any kind of coherency he was being pushed onto the pavement.

It was only by chance that he managed to stay on his feet; his vision was swimming, Baker Street tilting sickeningly around him, but it _was_ Baker Street, and underlying his relief was an odd sense of disappointment that it hadn’t been a lie, disgust with himself for having cooperated so completely that the still-unidentified man had done exactly as promised.

It was late, the street all but deserted, but the lights were on in the windows of the flat. He steadied himself and moved to the door, only to be brought up short.

Just a door between himself and home, safety, John. Just a doorknob, really; an absurdly insurmountable obstacle with his hands trapped behind him beneath his coat. _Can’t even reach my keys, pathetic, it’s just a pair of bloody handcuffs, how many times have I slipped—_ But his shoulder simply wouldn’t accommodate the necessary contortions and he knew he couldn’t generate enough force to break or dislocate any of the bones in his hand, not with his whole upper arm swollen and bruised.

It wasn’t as though he hadn’t tried.

He leaned his forehead against the surface of the door (the texture slightly rough against his skin). He considered, briefly, simply banging his head against it until someone answered. It was a perversely satisfying image, but instead he manoeuvred himself around to press the bell with his elbow, trying to ignore how humiliating this all was, the likelihood that Mycroft had cameras recording the whole sorry spectacle. If John were even willing to help him. Or, worse; what if he’d been lied to, what if something had happened? The thought popped into his head, unexpected and disorienting; no one had come to look for him, after all, maybe they were all—

The door opened and Sherlock’s vision was full of John’s face, eyes dark with exhaustion, underlaid with something else he couldn’t read. “Where the fuck have you been? What are you— what’s so funny?” He frowned, the corners of his mouth creasing in concentration, his mouth tightening as he searched Sherlock’s face. “No, that’s not. _Sherlock._ What’s the matter?”

* * *

John got both of them up the steps and through the door of 221b, in the end.

The next time Sherlock’s head cleared enough to properly take notice of his surroundings, he was sitting on the sofa with John perched next to him, patiently holding a cup of water from which he was encouraging Sherlock to drink. It felt like bliss, though swallowing was clumsy. He felt the stiff tissue of his mouth and throat slowly begin to loosen, gradually resuming their function as viable instruments of speech. Things were a very long way from right, but he was at least beginning to feel somewhat human again.

John’s eyes were shadowed, lips a thin line of disapproval. He was watching Sherlock’s face closely. Sherlock fought the urge to turn away from John’s assessing gaze.

Finally he managed to shape his mouth around some words, and was mildly horrified when those words took the form of a feeble joke. “Right,” he said, “you’ve got questions.” His throat burned with the effort.

John offered him another sip of water. “Yeah,” he said. “Key for those?”

Direct as always. Efficient. Good man, John. Sherlock wished he had an answer for him. Shrugging would have been too painful, so he simply closed his eyes.

“Right,” John said, “okay.” A deep breath. “I’ll phone Lestrade, tell him to meet us at A&E.”

 _Of course._ The perfect topper to the whole humiliating experience, and nothing he shouldn’t have anticipated. Would have preferred to skip it altogether. He considered arguing; couldn’t seem to work himself up to making the effort.

The room was moving rather nauseatingly around him. Sherlock wondered if he ought to mention it.

Then John’s face was in front of his own. “Found it,” he was saying, “in your jacket pocket. Did you know?”

“No.” He wasn’t sure precisely what it was he was meant to know in the first place, so: easy question. Answer ‘no,’ regardless.

Sharp pain at his wrists, deeper one at his shoulders, and he groaned as his hands flopped uselessly forward, finally freed. Handcuff key. Right. He’d known that one a few moments ago.

John was frowning, and—

“Don’t,” Sherlock managed, trying to jerk himself away from the probing fingers at his shoulder.

“Christ, Sherlock, that’s. What happened?”

John wouldn’t bother, if he knew—surely he’d leave Sherlock to his own devices, as Sherlock had left him to his—but though what Sherlock wanted most just then was to be left alone, he couldn’t bring himself to say it. “Just— don’t touch it.”

“Of _course_ I’m going to— easy, sit back before you fall over, will you? When’s the last time you ate?”

He took a long breath, trying to remember. Couldn’t pin down the timeline, quite, but knew the vital bit: “Before.” What day was it?

“Before _what_? Before you left? Christ, Sherlock, it’s been four days.”

That, at least, explained a few things. He wouldn’t have thought it possible for John’s eyebrows to draw any closer together, but there they went. Full of surprises, John.

“Right. We’re getting you to a hospital.”

“No. You do it.” Sherlock swallowed. “Please.”

John’s eyes on his were sharp, assessing. He touched his tongue to his lip. “Yeah,” he said finally, his expression softening, “yeah. I can. Try, at least, but if it’s too bad I’m taking you in and you won’t argue. I’ll call Sarah to bring some things. But I need you to work with me. Cooperate. Got that?”

Sherlock found himself nodding. More than a fair trade for what was left of his pride, tattered scrap of a thing that it was.

John was rummaging for his mobile under a pile of papers on the end table. Sherlock noted, absently, that there were nearly half a dozen mugs sitting about, much more than John usually left out. The flat smelled of coffee. Awareness of the odour brought it overwhelmingly to the forefront of his mind and his stomach gave a sharp twist as he choked, bringing up the bit of water John had given him.

 _Oh, he won’t like that,_ Sherlock thought, as the room faded around him from brown to grey to nothing.

* * *

The next thing he felt was John’s hand in his hair, parting the curls to examine the bruised spot (one of them; the worst one) there. John’s hand was dry, his touch gentle, soothing in a way Sherlock had forgotten it was possible to be soothed. He felt a jolt of fear that it would be removed and forced himself to the surface of his own consciousness, feeling his eyes open a crack.

“This is a few days old. Concussed?” John asked immediately, as though he’d been watching him wake up for a long time.

“Mmm.”

“How did it happen?” When he didn’t answer, John gave a small, unamused laugh. “Well, the good news is that if there were a bleed in your brain it likely would have killed you already. Though that’s also the you’re-an-idiot news. Ready to try some water again? Then I’m going to need to have a look at that shoulder.”

The water went down more smoothly this time and sat more easily in his stomach. John radiated patience; he watched Sherlock appraisingly but flicking his eyes away whenever Sherlock tried to return his gaze. Just as well. Once the cup was empty, John sat back and simply watched him.

Sherlock gritted his teeth. He’d promised he wouldn’t argue. Right. He began to work the buttons on his shirt with his good hand, pale fingers shaking below the filthy sleeve and messy band of raw skin left by the cuff. He only managed one button before John heaved an exasperated-sounding sigh, though his voice when he spoke was calmly professional.

“Here, let me.” The fabric was stiff with grime as John peeled it away from his skin. Sherlock watched his face, able to tell from the carefully neutral expression that he wasn’t happy with what he saw. _Of course not._ He’d wanted so badly to come home—asked to stay, been so pathetically grateful when John assented—but just then he wished he were anywhere else. Anything not to have to see the look of disgust John could no longer keep from his eyes.

Sherlock was shaking in earnest as John reached out a steady hand to pull the shirt all the way off. He suddenly couldn’t find anywhere to rest his gaze. He chanced a glance down at his own body. There was a deep bruise spreading downward over his ribcage and disappearing below the waistband of his trousers, now nearly black. His shoulder was grotesquely swollen, scarcely recognisable, the bruising on his upper arm streaking purple and yellow nearly to his elbow.

John was staring. After a long minute, he cleared his throat. “Sarah’s coming by soon. She’s bringing painkillers, but—“

Sherlock wanted to snatch his ruined shirt and cover himself. Now that John had seen the wreck of him, seen how easily Sherlock had let it happen…. “It’s out of joint,” he managed at last, his voice low and detached-sounding to his own ears. “And it’s stiffened up. A bit.”

“Stiffened up. Yeah.” John closed his eyes briefly. “I’m not sure I can do this. Not without sedation. Maybe surgery.”

There was dried blood on his skin. He was vaguely astonished that it hadn’t rubbed off.

“It’s not that bad,” Sherlock said. _I’m not that broken_ , he meant, and it was just as much a lie, but he wanted so badly for John to believe it. He could feel that the next words were a mistake before he even said them. Couldn’t stop himself. “Just pretend you’re still an army doctor. No supplies available. Just. Do what you’d do then. Fix it.”

It stung, and not just the “still.” John had told him stories about the times there were no supplies available. Or, rather, parts of stories. The funny bits, mostly, but Sherlock had heard him recount their own exploits often enough to be able to supply what he’d left out, what it meant to have the right skill in the wrong circumstance.

(The incident with Moriarty at the pool, for instance, narrated to Lestrade over a pint, accompanied by a hand waved in Sherlock’s direction and a laugh deep enough that John had to wipe away a tear: “Oh, God, you should have seen his _face_!” When Sherlock knew he meant precisely those words, but with a very different inflection.)

John was eyeing him warily, but Sherlock could see the hardening of resolve in the set of his mouth. “It’s going to hurt,” he warned. It sounded almost like a threat; John still had a strange intensity to his face and voice that Sherlock couldn't quite identify, and he felt a quiver of anxiety at the thought that John might enjoy it if—when—it did.

Then the thought: if he _did_ enjoy it, didn’t he deserve that? Didn’t they both?

Ruthless as ever.

“As I’m sure you’ve worked out,” he said, aiming for an ironic tone that he hoped would mask his nerves, “it already does. Rather a lot, actually. So get on with it, if you’d be so kind.”

“You stubborn, _impossible_ bastard. Fine.” John glared at him, arms crossed across his chest. “But first you’ll tell me how it happened.”

For a moment, Sherlock didn’t believe it. “ _John._ ”

“I’m serious. I need to know what I’m getting into. Otherwise I’ll just ring for the ambulance and you can have a proper round of care in hospital.”

He’d been outplayed. “Fine. _Fine._ ” Sherlock took a breath, preparing himself, but found he just couldn’t tell him. Not everything; not when it meant John turning away in disgust. Not now. “I fell.”

John blinked at him. “You— Yes, Sherlock, even _I_ could figure that one out. Fell _how_? Off a cliff? Out of the sky?”

“No,” he hissed. “Into a—“ He stopped himself; that was too close to the parts he couldn’t acknowledge. “My arms were behind me and I couldn’t catch myself. And I landed. Well. As it _looks like_ I landed. Is that sufficient information, doctor? To be getting on with?”

John continued to glare for three long beats, and Sherlock thought he might be about to challenge him again. “When was this?”

Sherlock used John’s own words because he had no more exact reference. “Four days ago,” he said, the hot bite of shame in his words and in his cheeks. Perhaps John saw it, because he finally relented, his entire posture softening as the defensive tension left his spine.

“But you won’t tell me what happened.”

“I _did_ tell you, I—“

“Yeah. Okay, it’s okay,” he said, calm and soothing and the sudden kindness in his voice edged so closely on a _need_ in Sherlock that he had to bite his lip savagely to avoid saying something he’d truly regret. “I suppose I don’t really need to. Here, come on, sit forward and I’ll—“ Sherlock could see the muscles move in John’s throat as he swallowed. “Look, no promises, all right?”

Sherlock had to close his eyes, couldn’t stand the thought of what John might read in them. “You’ll manage it,” he said, and let the _please_ hang silently in the air between them.

* * *

John did manage it, in the end. The muscles had stiffened severely and John had to put his full weight into just aligning the joint properly for the final push. Sherlock turned his head away, alternating gasping with forgetting to breathe altogether. By the time they finally felt the _pop_ that meant the bone had settled into place, they were both sweating.

Sherlock ended with his forehead pressed against John’s good shoulder, eyes squeezed tightly shut, his shuddering breath not quite crossing the line into sobs. John’s hands were moving in circles against the skin of his back, careful to avoid the worst of the bruises, though Sherlock could feel his fingers surreptitiously exploring the stark topography of ribcage and scapula.

It seemed like a long time before Sherlock regulated his breathing enough to speak. When he could, his voice came out as barely more than a whisper. “Thank you,” he mumbled into John’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.” Sorry for disappointing him, for worrying him. For the rest of it.

And John, to his credit, actually laughed. “You don’t need to be,” he said. “And so am I.”

* * *

They stayed like that until the bell rang downstairs; Sarah, who had stopped in at the surgery to retrieve the promised supplies. Sherlock didn’t know whether she was repaying a favour to John or if he now owed her one, but the lateness of the hour meant he was sure some accounting was being done. He added it, mentally, to the tally he would have denied keeping just a week previously.

John needed two trips up the steps to carry everything Sarah had brought, and Sherlock thought that ought to make him nervous. But John just said, “Tea, I think, with lots of sugar,” and turned on the kettle, and though his whole body still ached abominably it was all so very much better with his shoulder back in place that Sherlock thought he might, just might, be able to stand it.

By the time John finished making the tea they had both relaxed enough to make small jokes. The tea was cloyingly sweet, the way John always made it, and when Sherlock hesitated—and really, it was _pro forma_ , his body needed it and he knew it—John made vague threats about a glucose drip. “Want to get you in the bath, first,” he said, and the word _bath_ was almost enough to set Sherlock grinning.

When it came down to it, though, such things were easier said than done. Sherlock managed to choke down the tea and, while it settled heavily in his stomach, it wasn’t long before he felt the beginnings of a vibrant thrum make its way through his bloodstream. It was a heady feeling, enlivening enough to make him restless, to make him feel his other discomforts more directly.

Still, it all hummed along fairly optimistically until John finished running the bath and came to help him to it. Sherlock had risen from the sofa quite energetically, under the circumstances, but the sight that greeted him in the lav mirror was enough to stop him in his tracks.

The bruising in his shoulder not only extended down over his jutting hipbone to where he lost sight of it under the waistband of his trousers, it wrapped around his back, looking like nothing so much as the print of a large hand with the fingers all drawn together. Another dark bruise spread from under his hairline, over his forehead and down his right cheek. The white of his right eye eye was bright red, a disconcerting visual that both repulsed and fascinated him. He was filthy and really too thin altogether, even by his own admittedly-lax standards, his hair matted with dried blood and dirt.

Pale eyes hollowed out by dark circles started back at him. Though he’d felt it, somehow it was the seeing that was shattering. He hadn’t _known_ , not really.

John, having had a bit more time to acclimate himself to the sight, was the very picture of efficiency, practically tapping his foot with impatience. “In you go, then,” he said, “or it’ll get cold. Do you need help with your trousers?”

When Sherlock hesitated, John stifled a sigh and simply divested Sherlock of them with medical (military?) precision. They were even more filthy than his shirt had been, and Sherlock was suddenly self-conscious again, exposed and uncomfortably aware of how much dirt coated his skin. He could smell himself. _Disgusting._ The thought of climbing into the tub—actually deliberately soaking in water which had touched him in this state—was repulsive.

In that moment, he could imagine wanting nothing as much as he wished to disappear through a crack in the floor, but if John—standing there fully-clothed and impatient, condemning Sherlock implicitly with the contrast between them—understood, he gave no indication. Sherlock could feel a flush spreading from his collarbone up his neck and over his cheeks, and he credited the change in bloodflow with the fact that the room was beginning to tilt a bit again.

John was watching his face. “Is your shoulder hurting you?” The question was sharp, his mouth curled in a frown.

Sherlock wasn’t going to dignify that with a response, because _obviously_ it was, but that didn’t mean he was going to admit it. He couldn’t look at John, not even the parts of him that weren’t his face, that didn’t contain those probing eyes.

John made a small noise in his throat. Sherlock simply waited, trying not to fidget. He was _tired_ , could have folded into himself there on the floor and slept for a week if it weren’t for everything else.

It felt like a long time before John spoke. “Right. Shower first, then? The soak can wait. It’s hours ’til morning, in any case, so the tank might even be able to turn out enough hot water for both.”

 _Good man, John._ Sherlock wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for John’s insightfulness or embarrassed at his own transparency. He decided he could keep both thoughts in his head at once, and managed a small smile in John’s direction.

John drained the tub while Sherlock contemplated whether it would be bad form (ungrateful? Insulting?) to ask John to leave altogether while he cleaned himself. John caught sight of his face and folded his arms, looking pointedly at Sherlock’s shoulder. “Unless you’re planning to soap yourself up with your feet— actually, scratch that, I’m not even suggesting it as a joke. Just _no_ , to what you’re thinking.”

He was right, of course. It was a bit of a logistical snarl, at first— _“You’re too bloody tall like that, just sit down, won’t you?”_ —but they ended with Sherlock sitting on the floor of the tub and John perched on its lip, stripped down to trousers and vest, his hands careful and sure on Sherlock’s skin as the water sluiced over him.

It wasn’t long before John murmured, “Enough?” and, at Sherlock’s nod, simply replaced the stopper and allowed the tub to fill. When John tried to get him to lie back and relax in the steaming water, though, Sherlock found that the hard surface pressed against the bruises and the knobs in his spine, and he shifted uncomfortably.

“Here,” John said, “inch forward a bit.” He leaned down to pull off his socks and then simply slid into the tub behind Sherlock, heedless of his clothing, fitting his legs around either side of Sherlock’s hips and pulling the other man back to lean agains this chest. “Better?”

All Sherlock could manage in reply was a low hum of approval. The water was steaming nicely, already beginning to loosen stiff muscles and inducing an almost-pleasant ache where he was still missing patches of skin. John’s body was solid and reassuring against his back, and when he put his hand on Sherlock’s head and pulled it back to rest on his collarbone Sherlock closed his eyes and thought he could stay like that forever.

* * *

The next thing Sherlock felt was John’s breath against the back of his ear. “Come on now, I need you to wake up.”

He blinked  his eyes open and shifted stiffly, consciousness swimming up through blanketing layers. He’d drifted off in the tub, that much was obvious, and it seemed he’d been asleep long enough for the water to begin to cool. He was shivering—no, _John_ was shivering, at his back.

With John’s assistance (and he was moving stiffly, too, Sherlock noted; that couldn’t have been comfortable for him, and Sherlock felt a stab of guilt at the realisation) he got himself to a standing position. John helped him wrap himself in a towel— one ill-advised attempt to do it himself was all he needed to be convinced that he really couldn’t manage the necessary twist—and instructed Sherlock that he was to get into bed. John would be there as soon as he’d changed out of his dripping clothes.

Sherlock stumbled across the hall and lowered himself carefully onto the bed, feeling as though he might still be asleep. He thought he must have drifted off again as soon as his head touched the mattress because it seemed as though no time had passed at all before he could feel John’s sure hands moving across his ribcage, probing carefully, shifting him by millimetres.

“Couple of cracked ribs, too,” he heard John murmur, and it wasn’t really all that surprising, although how John had managed to figure that out without hurting him was a mystery disguised as a minor miracle.

Then John was helping him sit up and Sherlock shook his head to clear it, ignoring the stab of pain the motion sent down the back of his neck.

“I’m sorry, I know you’re going to hate this,”—Sherlock felt a stab of apprehension but _no,_ it would be fine, it was _John,_ and— “but I need to know this before I give you anything.” John wouldn’t meet Sherlock’s eyes. “Did they… hurt you at all?”

Sherlock stared at him.

“Yes,” he said finally, confused into truth.

“No,” John said hastily, and a flush spread up his neck. “I mean—God, I’m so sorry to have to ask this. I mean, well. Did they… I’m going to give you something to knock you out, and I need to know if there’s any damage. Internally.”

“Internally.” Sherlock turned that one over in his muzzy head. “Oh. _Oh._ No, John. Not— no, not that.” Sherlock swallowed; he hadn’t even considered. “Nothing deliberate. Just a fall.”

“Okay, right. Good.” John gave a tight smile of relief, and Sherlock had a sudden sense of just what the last few days might have been like for him. “Good. In that case.” He grabbed a penlight, which he shone in Sherlock’s eyes. “Your pupil response is almost normal. Good sign. You’re to tell me immediately if your headache gets any worse, got that? I’m serious. It could mean a bleed in your brain, and while that’s unlikely at this stage, if it’s a slow one… I need to hear you say you’ll tell me.”

“I’ll tell you,” Sherlock said slowly. His head still hurt a bit, but it had been steadily improving.

Still.

“Right. I’m going to tape up your ribs and strap your arm down—I know, sorry about that, but your shoulder’s in quite the state—and then give you something to help you sleep for a while. I know you don’t like needles, but, well.” John gave a small laugh.

Sherlock didn’t protest as John wrapped stiff tape around the cracked ribs and then secured his bad arm to his side, elbow bent with the tip of his fingertips nearly touching his opposite collarbone. “Not usually the best idea to immobilise a dislocated shoulder,” John said apologetically, “but it was out of joint so long, this is probably your best chance to let the muscles repair themselves and avoid surgery. Which may not actually be avoidable,” he said quickly, on Sherlock’s look. “And it’s going to hurt like hell, while this is on _and_ after it comes off, so just be ready for that.”

The dressing was uncomfortable but John’s hands were steady as he helped Sherlock lie back against the pillow.

“Do you want to try to eat something?” John asked thoughtfully. “I’m going to give you this IV either way, but if you think you can keep anything down it would speed things along.”

Sherlock considered, then shook his head regretfully. He felt dreadfully empty and would have liked something, but his stomach was burning and he really didn’t relish the idea of John having to clean up after him if he got sick again.

“Right, fair enough.” He took two drip bags from the kit Sarah had brought and hung them from a stray nail in the wall, then came to sit on the bed. “I’ll need your other arm,” he said, and Sherlock felt a pang as he realised this meant he would effectively have both hands out of commission yet again, but he’d promised not to argue and meant it. “Slight pinch,” John said, and Sherlock shuddered at the slithery feeling his sense memory dredged up as the line was inserted.

He closed his eyes in an effort to ward off _that_ particular dark train of thought, and by the time he opened them again John had hooked the whole thing up and was running his hand through Sherlock’s hair.

“Sleep now, I think,” he said. Sherlock’s eyelids were already heavy with that thick chemical slowness of sedation. He meant to say _thank you_ but didn’t quite manage to form his mouth around the words before unconsciousness closed over his head.

_  
_

* * *

 

_Sherlock hated this feeling. His discomfort with it was the first thing he felt, as he drifted up to the surface of his thoughts, even before he’d identified what the feeling _was_ , or why._

Time became a series of moments: a jab of sharp pain somewhere along his spine, John’s hands shifting and checking, helping him across the hall to the loo, fiddling with the tubes in the back of his hand. Voices, sometimes, drifting across his thoughts, though he mostly couldn’t process the words.

Sometimes Sherlock would try to speak to John but his lips and tongue felt too stiff. Other times he’d try and they _wouldn’t_ , and that worried him more, gave him the uncomfortable sense that he’d been talking in his sleep, but he couldn’t seem to remember what it was he might not want to reveal, or why. Usually this puzzle kept him distracted enough that the drugs would pull him back under before he got around to telling John whatever he’d meant to, in any case, and then the whole cycle would start again.

* * *

Sherlock’s mind fought slowly up to the surface, following a trail laid by John’s voice. John’s tone was _angry_ , quiet with that careful, considered rage was him at his most dangerous.

“— lied to us,” he was saying, “deliberately—“

John’s voice tipped briefly out of focus, then: “You’re both absolutely _insane,_ really, just dangerously idiotic.” A barking, derisive laugh. “Security! But you told us—“

A long pause. Sherlock could hear John’s quick footsteps; he was pacing. He never paced, not when he had something to focus on, he was too efficient to waste energy on things like that, not like Sherlock. It must be really awful, then, whatever it was.

“ _You_ told us he was safe! And now you’re telling me—“

Sherlock lost the train of John’s words, then, distracted by the certainty that the thing angering John, the awful thing making him pound his feet against the floor in frenetic useless motion, was _him._

Of course it was. What else?

Sherlock contemplated pulling out the lines of the IV, letting the pain rouse him enough to get out of that bed, but of course with one hand immobilised and the line inserted in the back of the other he actually couldn’t.

He stared at the line running from the wall into his hand for an embarrassingly long time before it occurred to him that he might use his teeth. He was seriously considering it—weighing the likelihood of damaging the tubing and making John even angrier—when John himself appeared at the doorway, mobile in hand.

“Oh good,” John said, his features drawn tight with strain. “Your brother wants to speak to you.” He raised the mouthpiece so he was speaking directly into it. “He’s awake, lucky for you, and don’t you dare tell him what you just told me or he’s to hang up on you.” A pause, during which John looked at Sherlock meaningfully. “You _know_ what,” he said into the receiver.

John extended the mobile to Sherlock and he took it, gratified to note that his own hand felt steadier than it had last time he’d been in a state to notice such things. “I need to pick up a few things at the chemist’s, in any case,” John told him. “Mrs. Hudson is downstairs if you need anything. I’ll be back soon and we’ll see about changing the dressing on your shoulder again.”

Sherlock couldn’t remember it having happened before, but nodded mutely anyway and put the mobile to his ear. “Mycroft,” he said, embarrassed at the rasping sound in his voice. He cleared his throat surreptitiously, ignoring the tearing feeling that always seemed to cause.

“I’m in Korea,” the smooth voice on the other end of the line said, without preamble, “otherwise I’d be there to tell you this in person. But then, that _is_ rather the problem, I’m afraid.”

Sherlock looked up, but John was already gone. “Just be direct, for once,” he said, because while he didn’t ordinarily have trouble following Mycroft’s occasionally-circular manner of speaking, his head wasn’t sufficiently clear to manage it at that moment.

Mycroft paused, delicately rearranging what he intended to say to accommodate Sherlock’s current mental capacity. _Understanding_ and _smug,_ Sherlock thought with a pang of resentment.

“I’m afraid,” Mycroft said, “that some of the blame for your your recent . . . circumstances . . . rests on my shoulders. And that the relevant situation is proving a bit more difficult to resolve than anticipated.”

“You knew about…” Sherlock began, stopping himself as understanding dawned. “Not one of my enemies; one of _yours_.”

Well, then. That explained, at least, why Sherlock hadn’t been able to determine who might have gone to such trouble to put him out of commission.

“Precisely. I’m afraid it was an attempt to force me to abandon my current project and return to London. Which, unfortunately, would have compromised the security of— well, quite a few of our allies,” he said smoothly, and Sherlock closed his eyes in annoyance at his brother’s smug self-importance. “I’d been alerted to your situation, of course, but—forgive me, brother—thought it best to allow things to continue on their path, given the alternatives.”

“What alternatives?”

Mycroft sighed in annoyance. “The man responsible for your recent abduction was one Joshua Parkes, a frankly two-bit criminal with an unimpressive record, whose services were purchased for an embarrassingly paltry sum. I had no reason to suppose you would come to any harm at his hand and had been given to understand that my own enemy’s next tactic would be something a bit more, well. _Large-scale,_ would be one way of phrasing it. So when Dr Watson contacted me I’m afraid I rather put him off the search.”

Sherlock’s head was spinning as he processed this. “I was the bait.”

“You and the doctor had quarrelled, had you not? So. A simple matter of suggesting that you did not wish to be found.”

“Yes.” It made sense, in its convoluted way. “Yet you never left Korea.”

“Hm. That’s why I’m calling you, you see. I’ve had to make a few adjustments to my itinerary.”

“Adjustments,” he echoed dumbly. The sense of Mycroft’s words seemed to be slipping away from him again.

“Indeed. It seems there’s a chance my enemies might still have a use for you,” Mycroft said, “given my continued involvement in . . . certain affairs.”

“This is what you told John?” Sherlock asked, a wave of exhaustion washing over him. He heard the front door of the flat swing open; doubtless John could explain it to him. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall.

“Of course not. I have no wish that he be involved further. But my sources have informed me that you might have reason to be on your guard, for the immediate future.”

“You’re saying I’m in danger.”

“I’m saying that the changing circumstances and Parkes’ limited understanding mean you _both_ are.”

Sherlock gave an exasperated sigh and clicked the disconnect button on the mobile. It rang again immediately, and he swatted it from the bed in irritation.

Mycroft had put not only Sherlock but John in danger, and how he was meant to limit his involvement with John when he was in this state, he couldn’t even begin to work out.

He was aware, as if from nowhere, of a throbbing pain in his head. He was almost certain it was a result of the tension clawing its way up the muscles in the back of his neck ( _chalk that one up to Mycroft too, then_ ), but a promise was a promise.

He glared up at the IV bags affixed to the wall. At least in hospital they had those wheeled stands, which would have given him a _bit_ of mobility. His own fault for insisting on staying here, though, so he pushed his irritation back down.

Approaching footsteps and the door to his room swung wide. “My head—“ Sherlock began, turning to face the door.

It wasn’t John who entered.

The sandy-haired man— _Joshua Parkes,_ Sherlock’s brain supplied numbly, as though it would help—stood in the doorway.

“Sherlock Holmes,” he said, a nasty grin spreading across his face. “And don't you just look truly bloody awful.”

* * *

He had a knife. It was a surprise; Sherlock would have guessed he’d go for the easy intimidation afforded by a pistol.

Sherlock had always hated knives. Guns, at least, required intent before they became dangerous. Knives, though. Those were something else entirely.

All of which was just a distraction, and one which wasn’t doing a thing to diminish the pain in his head.

“Not so bad as all that.” Sherlock thought it sounded something like his own voice, even, which was encouraging. He was mentally inventorying the items in the room; nothing useful to hand ( _and yes, ‘hand,’ in the singular,_ he thought in frustration, pulling surreptitiously at the dressing on his shoulder.)

“Glad to hear it,” Parkes said, his voice a sneer. He was moving slowly toward the bed, or at least it looked like he was moving slowly, although it also looked as though he were moving worrying up and down along with the rest of the room. Sherlock wasn’t sure he was the best judge of the physics of the situation at that moment; just what had John given him? “Quite the setup here. Lucky you’ve got the doctor around to take care of you. And that nice lady downstairs.”

 _Right._ John might have been safely out of harm’s way for the moment, but Mrs. Hudson was in. The threat was implicit.

“Lucky me,” he said. He felt woozy from the drugs, tried to force his brain to focus enough to think of something useful to do. “Listen, though, if you’re—“

“Oh, just _shut up_.” Parkes was at his bedside now. He held the knife in his right hand, running the fingertips of his left hand along the IV tubes.

Sherlock registered the intent in his eyes a moment before he acted, and was able to brace himself enough that he didn’t cry out when the whole mess was unceremoniously yanked out of the back of his hand. It hurt, though perhaps not as much as it would have if his blood hadn’t already been swimming with the drugs.

_That’s something, at least._

Blood welled instantly to the surface of his skin and he turned his hand to press it against the side of his thigh.

Well. He wondered how long it would take before his head started to clear, whether he’d have a window between that and the pain growing to an intensity that he’d find to be a hindrance.

“Do you know what I want, Mr. Holmes?” Parkes asked.

“I suppose you’d like me to come with you,” he answered, aiming for a bored tone, unable to judge his own success. The room was spinning a bit; he wanted to close his eyes. “Given that you are once again threatening—“

This time he couldn’t brace for it, though he thought he managed to avoid anything quite so undignified as a shout as the knife slid into his thigh.

He’d been stabbed before.

It always managed to surprise him just how much it hurt.

 _Two-bit criminal,_ Sherlock reminded himself, wondering if there were a chance Mycroft had been wrong in that assessment; inexperienced or petty crooks usually exhibited more hesitation about sliding a blade into living flesh.

So this, then: unexpected.

Parkes was wiping the blood from the knife onto the blanket. “You talk far too much,” he said, “for someone who doesn’t seem to _know_ anything.”

Sherlock could feel the blood pooling warm and wet along his leg, the sheets already sticking to it. He swallowed, didn’t speak. That was better, with the pain threatening to overwhelm whatever he would have liked to say. Easier to keep his mouth shut altogether.

“So. Yes. You’re going to come with me. We’re going to leave London. I’ve got a cozy little hole for us to hide out in together. And then we’re going to wait for your brother to come collect you.”

“And you think,” he managed, risking the words, his mouth feeling painfully dry already, “that I’m just going to walk out of here with you.”

“Of course you are,” Parkes said, the nasty smile once again playing across his mouth. “Because of the nice lady downstairs. Because of your doctor friend. In fact,” he went on, “I think it’s best if we get moving, don’t you? Your landlady seems like the type to drop by for a chat.”

It was a point; Sherlock wasn’t sure John hadn’t asked her to check up on him, and he really didn’t like any of the scenarios he could envision resulting from her walking in on this strange little tableau.

“A little unwise, isn’t it?” he said, trying to funnel all his attention into the movement of his lips and away from everything else. “Stabbing me, I mean. If you expect me to walk out of here with you.”

“Oh,” Parkes said dismissively. He leaned in and brought the hand with the knife down heavily on Sherlock’s bandaged shoulder, narrowly avoiding slicing him in the ear. Sherlock almost managed not to wince as the contact sent a heavy jolt of pain tingling along his spine. “Don’t think I don’t know what’s under here. I think you’ll manage just fine.”

“Or what, then. You’ll not kill me; you’d lose your leverage.”

“Kill you? Not _you,_ Mr. Holmes, no.”

There it was; the one threat that would actually work.

He would manage, then, and he’d go, because both were choices without any viable alternative.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, was mildly gratified when his feet landed on the floor and he found they’d take his weight, managed to stand. He was wearing— _Christ, what was he wearing?_ —dressing gown and pyjamas, nothing suitable for wandering around London without attracting attention.

He saw the same thought pass through Parkes’ mind. “Change, then,” he said, “but do it quickly.”

Sherlock’s hands were shaking ( _exhaustion,_ he told himself firmly, refusing to admit the possibility that it might be nerves) as he picked out trousers and shirt. He couldn’t do up the buttons one-handed and hesitated, holding himself awkwardly with his shirt and flies standing open. Parkes laughed and did them for him, intentionally rough; left Sherlock’s empty shirtsleeve flapping. It was too intimate, made his skin crawl.

Sherlock briefly considered trying to grab one of Lestrade’s warrant cards from his bureau. He could drop it somewhere, he thought, as an S.O.S. He glanced at the bed, the fresh blood on the sheets already darkening, and decided that was enough; John would know.

There was a flutter of something like panic in his chest. He swallowed it down.

“Come on then,” Parkes said, and Sherlock walked with him—stiff, a crescendo of pain radiating outward through his limbs, the drugs wearing off already, wouldn’t do to dwell on that too much—through the door of his room.

“Coat,” he said once they were in the living room, and Parkes got it for him, put it on without having to be asked, even tucking the empty sleeve into the pocket so it wouldn’t draw attention.

“All right, on with it then. And don’t say anything to the nice lady on the way out, she won’t be expecting you to be up and about just yet. It would only worry her,” Parkes sneered.

Sherlock nodded, his mind’s eye conjuring the photographs of a sniper’s sight trained on Mrs Hudson’s back. He wouldn’t say anything.

Parkes crowded close behind him, practically pushing him as they exited the door to the flat—

\--and narrowly avoided colliding with John, who was coming up the stairs.

* * *

“What—“

It took John approximately two seconds to go from _questioning_ to _reacting_ , which was one of the things about John which Sherlock couldn’t help but appreciate. He appreciated it _always_ , but he’d be forgiven for finding it particularly valuable in moments like this.

It took two seconds for John to process what he was seeing and drop the carrier bags he’d been carrying. In those two seconds, With the heightened awareness that always accompanied moments like this, Sherlock watched two oranges roll out of one of the bags and bump noisily down the steps.

Those two seconds gave Parkes time to make a grab for Sherlock’s shoulder and pull him in tight. Sherlock could feel the motion of his arm as he began to bring the knife up, clearly intending to position it against Sherlock’s throat.

Stupid. The man obviously didn’t know John at all, hadn’t done even the slightest bit of research. Mycroft’s assessment might have been right, then, after all.

Sherlock knew John, though, which is how he knew how he could best be of assistance in this situation: by getting, as rapidly as possible, _out of his way_.

He flicked his eyes down and saw John’s mouth tighten fractionally in acknowledgment. He was standing one step down, which was a disadvantage but not an undue one. It didn’t seem to worry John, at least, so Sherlock decided not to let it bother him either.

The knife didn’t even make it all the way up before Sherlock saw the telltale bunching of the muscles in John’s forearm.

Time for Sherlock to make his big move, then.

His big move was, in the simplest terms, to sit down.

Well, not precisely that, or not just. He also twisted so his back was to the wall. This unfortunately brought his upper arm (his _good_ upper arm, and his _coat_ , damn it all) into contact with the knife; it was a long slice but without intention behind it, so not deep, and Sherlock consoled himself with the thought that it would buy John another fraction of a second before Parkes could turn the blade around to do anything useful with it.

John, for his part, simply launched himself forward in something that more closely resembled a rugby tackle than anything he was likely to have learned as part of his army training. He and Parkes stumbled backward into the flat and Sherlock tried to follow what was going on but the room was spinning quite alarmingly; he closed his eyes and listened to the sounds he could hear coming from inside. John clearly had the best of the fight from the beginning.

As it turned out, Sherlock needn’t have worried about the knife at all; Parkes had dropped it in surprise when he felt the impact of John’s body against his own.

Absolutely a two-bit criminal, then. Embarrassing if he thought about it too much, but under the circumstances he supposed it was the preferable of the two possible options.

From there, it took very little time at all. From inside the flat came ragged breathing and a few painful-sounding thuds and then stillness. After a moment John called Sherlock’s name, voice calm and assured, asking if he was all right.

When he answered in the affirmative—because he was, really, in all the ways that counted, even if his throat was so dry that his own voice wouldn’t come out any louder than middling-quiet—John asked, “Any chance you’re up to coming in here for a moment?”

Sherlock pushed himself awkwardly to his feet, allowing himself to wince now that there was no one to see. He could hear Mrs. Hudson moving about downstairs; she’d doubtless be up soon, to see what had caused the noise. Well, it was safe enough, now.

When he entered the sitting room, it was to find an unconscious Parkes sprawled on the floor, John sitting on his back and holding his hands so that the wrists were bent at an angle that looked, to Sherlock’s eye, extremely painful.

Good man, John.

John was breathing heavily and _grinning_ , his eyes sparkling. He looked up at Sherlock and laughed. “I don’t suppose you still have Lestrade’s handcuffs tucked away somewhere.”

Direct, too. “Of course.”

“No rush,” John added as Sherlock made his slightly-unsteady way to his bedroom to retrieve them.

Mrs. Hudson appeared at the doorway while John was applying them to Parkes’ still-unconscious form.

“ _Sherlock_ ,” she said, dumbfounded.

“It’s all right,” he told her, though he knew it wasn’t convincing, what with the unconscious man on the floor and his own state. “Though now would be an excellent time for you to go downstairs and phone the Yard, if you’d be so kind. Ask for Detective Inspector Lestrade. Tell him there’s been an intruder; he’ll send someone appropriate.” He’d come himself, of course. He always did, even when it was something that was clearly below his rank. Sherlock suspected Mycroft’s hand in, and for once didn’t really mind.

As soon as she was gone, John turned to him and practically pushed him onto the sofa.

“Sit down before you fall down, you utter _prat_. You. You were _actually_ going to go with him.” He pulled Sherlock’s coat off and assessed the damage with sharp eyes and sure fingers. “Shoulder and thigh. Anywhere else?”

Sherlock shook his head, feeling a bit overwhelmed.

“I imagine you pulled out your own IV, too, or— right, no, I suppose you couldn’t. Well.” John wasn’t about to let that deter him. “You are in no state to be going. I mean, for a genius—“

Sherlock caught his hand, held it. “ _John._ ” It stopped him, at least. “I’m sorry.”

All the things he couldn’t say—there was a whole list of those (wasn’t there always?)—crowded into his mouth, pushing against his teeth, and he had to clamp them down. The list was dreadfully out of order but it started with _I’m sorry_ and ended some dozens of items later with _John_ , and somewhere along the way there was an admission that he didn’t trust himself ( _that caring lark_ ), didn’t want John to develop expectations. Didn’t want to disappoint him.

“I wasn’t going to go,” he said again. “I knew you’d be home.”

“No, you didn’t.” John was unbuttoning the his shirt, setting aside sutures and a bandage for the jagged tear in his upper arm.

“Of course I did. Left it a bit late, but I was right in the end.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Yes.”

At that, John just smiled at him; satisfied that Sherlock hadn’t been seriously injured, he allowed some of the tension to fall away from his bearing. It was manageable; they’d manage it.

Sherlock let John work in silence, tongue edging out to touch his lip in concentration as he dabbed antiseptic onto Sherlock’s skin, stitched. He repeated the process on his thigh, and _of course_ that would be when Lestrade arrived, Sherlock sitting with his trousers around his ankles and John bent forward with his head practically in Sherlock’s lap.

Thankfully, Lestrade had the good grace not to comment on it, though from the twitch in his cheek it was a near thing.

“Sherlock,” he said by way of greeting. “You look like death inefficiently warmed over. And _those_ ,” he added, indicating Parkes’ still-unconscious form, “are police-issue.”

John gave a rough account of what had happened, while he finished stitching Sherlock’s thigh and wrapped it carefully. Parkes began to stir; Lestrade knelt at his side to lay a heavy knee across his back, keeping him still, and by the time John was done he was conscious enough that Lestrade could legally take him into custody.

He was almost out the door before Sherlock remembered that there was something he needed to tell him. “Lestrade. Listen. You’ll be getting a phone call from my brother”—he’d be sure of that—“though he may not identify himself as such. You’ll know him because he . . . well. He’s _distinctive_ , you’ll know. You need to listen to what he’s going to tell you.”

He explained, briefly, about the potential bombs while John sat beside him, staring. He seemed to be conducting an experiment as to the number of configurations of _frown_ he could inflict on his facial muscles.

“Right,” Lestrade said, “thanks. I’ll keep you informed,” he added in John’s direction, and Sherlock understood it as meaning that he was out for the rest of this one.

That ought to bother him more than it did. He made a mental note to work himself up about it later; it was, perhaps, a measure of how far gone he was that at the moment he simply couldn’t. He was _tired_.

The door had no more than closed behind Lestrade and Parkes before John was pulling him to his feet and ushering him back to his bed, stopping only long enough to help him change into pyjamas and put on some less-bloody sheets.

“That damned brother of yours. Worry about you, he says. Though how you manage to get into these messes….” It was the affectionate sort of scolding, which Sherlock really wouldn’t have minded, but John stopped himself anyway. “Well. Glad that’s done, at least, and that you’re still here.” He rubbed ruefully at his own hip. “I haven’t done that since Uni.”

“It was effective,” Sherlock said, and John just grinned at him. Sherlock found himself smiling back in response.

The back of Sherlock’s hand was an utter mess, and John scowled at it some more before deciding he’d have to place the IV higher, in his elbow. Sherlock knew he’d spend the rest of the time he was there averting his gaze from the needle sticking there (of all places), but he allowed it. John seemed to understand, though, and smoothed Sherlock’s hair, and that _did_ help, a bit.

Once everything was situated again, John sat on the bed. “You didn’t tell me any of that. What you told Lestrade, I mean.”

Sherlock was already starting to feel the effects of the drugs, lassitude stealing through his veins, gathering up the pain and his own intent in one big sweep of his faculties.

It felt like a long time before he could work out how to answer. “I didn’t know it myself before I spoke to my brother this afternoon.”

John’s eyes were moving rapidly over his face, and the light in them was— _oh_.

Sherlock thought it might be happening, the expectation-setting, despite his best intentions.

He’d figure out a way to put a stop to it. Later. Perhaps an experiment involving human eyeballs and every one of John’s socks, or—

Or.

John's hand was warm against his temple.

It was enough, Sherlock supposed, to be getting on with.

“I think you’ll feel quite a bit better tomorrow,” John said, and it was the last thing Sherlock heard before he fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> The basic premise for this - gratuitous injury as deterrent to stop investigating - comes from a detective novel I read sometime during my hazy and impressionable youth. I'd like to credit it, if I could remember the title; does that sound familiar to anyone?


End file.
